Special privilege to know Mary

Louise BaileyAlong The Ridges

Published: Sunday, January 18, 2009 at 4:30 a.m.

Last Modified: Sunday, January 18, 2009 at 10:33 a.m.

Forget Mary? Never. I can still remember when she came to our house to look after my sister Jennie and me when we were not yet of school age, Mary riding on the bare plank that served as a wagon seat, and her brother “Bub” who drove the white mule John and the gray one Bill. Bub reined in the mules beside our house and Mary stepped down.

She followed us into the parlor, as living room’s were called then, and when Grandma offered her a chair Mary chose the straightest one and sat with her feet slightly apart and motionless, her thumbs circling one another on her lap. After she and Grandma had talked for a little while she said to Jennie and me, “C’mon. Le’s y’ns and me go out in the woods and build ye a playhouse.” From that moment she was our friend.

Whether sewing for us on a treadle machine or walking with us in town to pass the time of day with her kinfolks coming in to buy sugar and flour, she ever kept us near her and as properly behaved as possible.

When evenings came at our house and her day’s work was done, Mary eased the door between the hall and the living room slightly open and looked in quietly. She waited until my father saw her and asked her to sit with us, then she talked of her life on Pinnacle Mountain. Although a very young child at the time, I was struck with her memories, but I didn’t know how much I was learning first hand about pioneer times from one who had lived them.

And when I spent time with Mary’s sister and brother, I saw how they lived, whether working at the usual regimens of independent country life or resting by an oak log fire at evening times.

Ellen refrigerated milk and butter in a spring house at the foot of the hill and I may sometimes have counted how many trips she made to bring back what she needed for the meal ahead. I learned how she had taken shortcuts when she walked the seven miles from her house to town because the jolting of the wagon hurt her back. I saw old time ways. And I remember Bub resting in sunshine pouring in through his open front door with no screen to block it while he rolled his cigarette from the pack of cigarette paper and a small bag of tobacco he kept in his pocket.

A rough road rarely traveled by automobiles led to the four room clapboard house on a shelf above Dismal Creek. Two large square slabs of granite, one loosely placed on top of the other, lay at the front door, and a red clay bank stood behind the house. Room under the edges of the upper rock could have been a snake den, but thankfully I never saw it in use. In the main room downstairs were two beds, one with a deep feather mattress and the other, Bub’s bed, with a corn shuck one that rustled with his slightest move.

Underneath the feather bed a hole some six or seven inches wide had been cut to allow cats to come and go without the door having to be opened for them.

Yet I know now that while those times at Pinnacle were in vivid contrast to the ways of my coastal relatives who regularly occupied their summer homes in Flat Rock and looked to employees to see to the work, it was a special privilege for me to have been where I often was when I was growing up.

My thanks go to Mary, to the chance for those Pinnacle trips with my dad, when he made house calls to patients in the far corners of the county, and to having been able to appreciate such individuals as, for example, the woman who came to the door of my husband’s office, holding one hand in the air and announcing vehemently that she had reached down to give the dog a dead rat. “But,” she said “he got a’holt o’ my finger instead and I’ve come to get me a ‘technical’ shot.”

I have known little related to dullness even on the most dismal days.

Louise Bailey is a native of Henderson County and lives in Flat Rock. She writes from a lifelong interest in the history of the area.

<p>Forget Mary? Never. I can still remember when she came to our house to look after my sister Jennie and me when we were not yet of school age, Mary riding on the bare plank that served as a wagon seat, and her brother Bub who drove the white mule John and the gray one Bill. Bub reined in the mules beside our house and Mary stepped down.</p><p>She followed us into the parlor, as living room’s were called then, and when Grandma offered her a chair Mary chose the straightest one and sat with her feet slightly apart and motionless, her thumbs circling one another on her lap. After she and Grandma had talked for a little while she said to Jennie and me, C’mon. Le’s y’ns and me go out in the woods and build ye a playhouse. From that moment she was our friend.</p><p>Whether sewing for us on a treadle machine or walking with us in town to pass the time of day with her kinfolks coming in to buy sugar and flour, she ever kept us near her and as properly behaved as possible.</p><p>When evenings came at our house and her day’s work was done, Mary eased the door between the hall and the living room slightly open and looked in quietly. She waited until my father saw her and asked her to sit with us, then she talked of her life on Pinnacle Mountain. Although a very young child at the time, I was struck with her memories, but I didn’t know how much I was learning first hand about pioneer times from one who had lived them. </p><p>And when I spent time with Mary’s sister and brother, I saw how they lived, whether working at the usual regimens of independent country life or resting by an oak log fire at evening times.</p><p>Ellen refrigerated milk and butter in a spring house at the foot of the hill and I may sometimes have counted how many trips she made to bring back what she needed for the meal ahead. I learned how she had taken shortcuts when she walked the seven miles from her house to town because the jolting of the wagon hurt her back. I saw old time ways. And I remember Bub resting in sunshine pouring in through his open front door with no screen to block it while he rolled his cigarette from the pack of cigarette paper and a small bag of tobacco he kept in his pocket.</p><p>A rough road rarely traveled by automobiles led to the four room clapboard house on a shelf above Dismal Creek. Two large square slabs of granite, one loosely placed on top of the other, lay at the front door, and a red clay bank stood behind the house. Room under the edges of the upper rock could have been a snake den, but thankfully I never saw it in use. In the main room downstairs were two beds, one with a deep feather mattress and the other, Bub’s bed, with a corn shuck one that rustled with his slightest move.</p><p>Underneath the feather bed a hole some six or seven inches wide had been cut to allow cats to come and go without the door having to be opened for them.</p><p>Yet I know now that while those times at Pinnacle were in vivid contrast to the ways of my coastal relatives who regularly occupied their summer homes in Flat Rock and looked to employees to see to the work, it was a special privilege for me to have been where I often was when I was growing up.</p><p>My thanks go to Mary, to the chance for those Pinnacle trips with my dad, when he made house calls to patients in the far corners of the county, and to having been able to appreciate such individuals as, for example, the woman who came to the door of my husband’s office, holding one hand in the air and announcing vehemently that she had reached down to give the dog a dead rat. But, she said he got a’holt o’ my finger instead and I’ve come to get me a technical’ shot.</p><p>I have known little related to dullness even on the most dismal days.</p><p>Louise Bailey is a native of Henderson County and lives in Flat Rock. She writes from a lifelong interest in the history of the area.</p>